Age fractions

This is just a reminder that when entering the age field from the census manuscript that you only enter a fraction for children under 1 year old. If the child is 1 1/12, enter 1 in the field. There is no need to write the fraction in the remarks. Once the child turns one, she is one until she is two. She is two until she is three. So if the child is 2 6/12, enter 2 in the field.

Recently, the cleaners have been noticing that inputters are doing math (sometimes incorrectly) and creating decimals to deal with these fractions. Please do not do this.

Here are some examples: There were two entries typed in as 25/12. For one of them the manuscript said 1 1/12, and for the other the manuscript said 2 1/12. That's quite a difference. These should have been entered as 1 and 2, respectively. Another person did some conversions from fractions to decimals, 1 9/12 to 1.75.

Much of this goes away in the cleaning, but if you enter the wrong information that could make the rules clean the data to the wrong age.

To sum up. Use fractions only when the child is under one year of age. After the child turns one, use only whole numbers.